This Is the Way of Tyrants
Everyone fell silent. It was the kind of silence that felt like hands wrapped around your throat — the sort where a single feather drifting to the ground might shatter the whole room into pieces.
At the far end of that silence, Seok Ho, the City Lord of Wunso, finally found his voice.
"Clan Head Yi... is what your son just said truly your will?"
Yi Jo could not answer. The Seok Clan had long held the city lordship of Wunso and remained its most powerful family. Their prestige had waned considerably with Yi Pyeong's return, and lately there was open talk that the Yi Clan had overtaken them outright — but even so, the Yis had still treated them with deference, keeping themselves humbled below.
Seok Ho studied the flustered expression on Yi Jo's face, gave a slow nod, and then turned a smoldering glare on Yi Pyeong.
"So it seems even your father knew nothing of this. How dare you insult our clan?"
Yi Pyeong's expression never lost its gentleness, nor did his voice — yet to the people watching, it was as if a slab of cold stone had opened its mouth and begun to speak.
"In the past, when the Seok Clan's power was at its height, it was only natural that the Seoks should rule Wunso City. But today, everyone knows that the Yi Clan is the strongest family. How could the strongest family claiming dominion over Wunso City possibly be an insult to you?"
"Absurd! So you happened to raise a talented Cultivation Seed — that means nothing in the long run. Our prestige may not be what it once was, but our clan is hardly without its own seeds! What does a momentary advantage matter when..."
Yi Pyeong vanished.
Angry as he was, the seasoned Seok Ho had already been braced for it. He flung a palm strike at the Yi Pyeong who materialized directly in front of him.
Yi Pyeong raised a hand, almost lazily.
BOOM!
With the roar of thunder, Seok Ho felt the bones of both arms shatter to splinters mid-strike. The pain was so hideous he couldn't even scream.
Yi Pyeong, unhurried, pressed his index and middle fingers against the space between Seok Ho's brows — a careless, almost idle gesture.
Tuk.
It made a sound no heavier than a finger rapping on a table.
Seok Ho swayed violently and collapsed. A hole the size of a coin gaped in his forehead, punched through so cleanly that not a single drop of blood flowed from it.
The crowd stood with their mouths hanging open, unable even to close them — shock had carried them far past the limit of what a mind could absorb. It was a sight no one could convince themselves was real.
"If anyone has an objection, speak now, as the former head of the Seok Clan did. That way, it will end without pain."
Another suffocating silence — and then someone sprang to their feet. The Ma Clan Lord of Wunso City.
"The Ma Clan pledges itself to the Yi Clan!"
"And the O Clan as well! We will follow the Yi Clan!"
Only then did the other clan lords come to their senses, one after another scrambling up on trembling legs to swear their loyalty. Yi Pyeong nodded to them.
"Thank you for your consent. The Yi Clan will remember the promises made here today."
Among all those present, only Jin Ho-un was still holding onto his sanity, and it was he who spoke.
"The Seok Clan has also produced no small number of Cultivation Seeds, you know."
Yi Pyeong merely smiled.
"I appreciate your concern. Of course, they will need to be dealt with as well. I cannot very well allow anything to endanger my family — or my brother, can I?"
He glanced around the room before adding,
"That said, I have no desire to see blood spilled unless it's truly necessary. What would be the point of claiming a Wunso City left dead and empty? Rest assured, City Lord Jin."
Jin Ho-un gave a nod. He, too, understood — at least in outline — the way of the cultivation world.
Cultivators regarded the people of the mortal world as hardly better than beasts, yet they never went so far as to deny their usefulness. To obtain the spirit stones, spirit herbs, and elixirs their training required, they needed the mortal world. The heavens were vast and cultivators were few; self-sufficiency was simply impossible.
And so, while cultivators ignored the people of the secular world, they did not despise them, nor did they bother with needless slaughter. More than that, if a sect hoped to keep receiving a steady supply of Cultivation Seeds and grow its numbers, the cooperation of the great noble houses was indispensable. Yi Pyeong, it seemed, had no intention of slaughtering the crowd that had gathered here either.
Yi Yeok had taken quite a shock as well, but he quickly forced his cooling mind toward a different task — trying to guess what his brother was really after.
What the hell is he scheming?
Was it all truly for the rise of the Yi Clan? Or — since Yi Yeok clearly knew something about that woman — was he being paid off to keep his mouth shut? Or was this, too, merely one piece of some vast plan that Yi Pyeong seemed to harbor in secret?
The next day, Yi Yeok paid his usual morning respects to the Grand Madame, as he always did upon returning home. The only difference was that this time, his greetings carried a farewell.
The Grand Madame looked at him long and hard, then asked,
"So it's true... you mean to leave?"
"I do. But I'll come visit often."
"No amount of talking was ever going to change your mind, was it."
A woman who had been remarkably hale for her eighty years, she now bore the unmistakable look of one aged a decade in a single night. Yesterday's events had clearly shaken her as deeply as anyone.
"You must take care of yourself. We learned this past day that you carry a violent temper in your bones — and I fear the bitterness of all those pent-up years has only fanned it hotter. Promise me you'll keep that heart of yours in check."
"Don't worry about me. I've always preferred settling things with words rather than fists."
Had An Eun-chae or Yeo Gwi heard that, they would have doubled over laughing.
"I find myself glad now that you refused to enter a sect."
The Grand Madame seemed to be turning yesterday's shock over in her mind once more.
"They say the path of the immortal is long and distant — that those who walk it come to regard nothing in the mortal world as meaningful. I thought I understood what that meant. But only when I saw your brother yesterday did I truly comprehend it."
She fell silent for a moment before speaking again.
"I pray you never become like him."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Yi Yeok bowed and stepped out of the hall.
He was just approaching the main gate of the estate when he spotted Seol Chong, waiting there — apparently for him.
"Is there truly no way you might reconsider?"
Seol Chong asked. No matter how he looked at him, he could detect no exceptional talent in Yi Yeok, yet somehow failing to properly carry out the task he'd been given left a sour taste in his mouth all the same.
"I appreciate the offer, Brother Seol, but for a guy like me, I figure it's better to just go on living the way I have been."
Yi Yeok said it with a smile.
Seol Chong let out a sigh.
"This is not a path a man can walk on someone else's will. A pity — but so be it."
A short while later, word reached Yi Jo that Yi Yeok had left.
"What? And you just let him walk out?"
The gatekeeper who had delivered the report hunched his shoulders. Yi Pyeong waved a hand, dismissing him.
"Calm yourself, Father. It was by my order. Even had we forced him to stay, what would it have accomplished but a bigger disaster?"
"How can you be so willful! Your own brother built you a city lordship, for your sake!"
"He's still young, that's all. Let him suffer a while longer out there, and he'll naturally come to miss home."
Yi Jo huffed and grumbled, letting his anger cool by degrees.
"And yet... I trust you, of course, as your father does... but I worry. I always thought of it as a seat that would one day be his — I never imagined he'd throw it away so suddenly..."
Yi Pyeong smiled, soft as ever.
"There is no need to worry about anything. Just trust in me."